One of the monks who lived with Elder Paisios said: “Inside the monastery, he is an exemplary monk who struggled and practiced in prayer and fasting every day.”
The same monk describes his life in the cell:
“I used a chestnut log as a pillow. I had a makeshift bed with two boards with a gap in the middle so that the spine does not warm up. I ate tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage for a long time until I got used to them and I did not eat with appetite. Every night I attended the vigil. I slept a little. In the church, I did not sit in a stall so that I would not fall asleep.”
How do you live with less?
The priest Athanasios Pittas narrates the following dialogue:
– Elder, how do you live in this place? How do you subsist?
– I do not have to pay electricity, water, phone bills. All I need is two thousand drachmas a year and I manage to find them. I cut thin trunks transversely, make these stamps and send them to Chalkidiki. Then I buy the crispbread for one year and whatever else I need.
I have become a program
Elder Paisios has always been close to people, although he wanted to be alone:
“I have become a program of people. In the past, I was immersed in praying. Now I live with the people’s problems and concern. How many times do I wake up in the middle of the night…What my heart says is to take a knife, cut it into pieces, share it with the world and then die. On the one hand, visitors raise my fever; on the other hand, they don’t let me die because I don’t have a chance.”
The prayer rope
Elder Paisios likened the prayer rope to the machine’s rope that you pull and it heats the oils.
“I pray while holding my prayer rope and walking at night. Because I have a blood problem, I stretch my legs a little bit. If I let myself in that position, the others should serve me. Now I am the one who is serving the world. That is why one should not rejoice in lying down because it does not help.”
